


till my lover returns

by princessofthorns



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: And a happy ending, F/F, Horror, The Haunting of Bly Manor AU, With A Twist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:41:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27064348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessofthorns/pseuds/princessofthorns
Summary: After saving her niece from death, Margaery must live with the knowledge that her days are numbered.Sansa is not ready to give up on her.The Haunting of Bly Manor AU!
Relationships: Sansa Stark/Margaery Tyrell
Comments: 26
Kudos: 74





	1. why are your eyes blue?

_“I’ve told you, I might not be a gardener by profession, but I grew up in the greatest garden in the continent,” Margaery exclaimed as they emerged into a place she hadn’t known about until that moment._

_A short path opened up into one of the small forests in the Nightfort’s yard, a little garden amongst the weeds. The number of different flowers and species of plants she detected told her Sansa had done her job there._

_She touched a white night-blooming flower as she resumed, “Between the outer and middle walls of Highgarden there’s a briar labyrinth. I was never able to count the number of flower beds we have there, and the botanic garden… We also have an ornamental lake, with giant lily pads.”_

_“Is that a power play?”_

_Margaery spun around to find an unimpressed Sansa; brown eyes questioned the redhead._

_Sansa shrugged. “Or is it some kind of strategy? Making sure the other person knows how wealthy you are, but doing so with a nostalgic dreamy look on your face and a silky voice so they don’t realize you’re trying to.”_

_Margaery smirked, pulling her closer by her heavy brown coat._

_“Is that what you think of me? Stop trying to find secret meanings and ulterior motives behind every word I say, sweetling.”_

_She let her go and gestured to their surroundings. “I am merely saying that even though my knowledge evolving all of this will never top yours, there is not much you can show me that will have me impressed.”_

_Sansa raised her eyebrow and guided Margaery to where she was. She touched her face, gently forcing it down so Margaery could see what she wanted her to._

_Margaery refrained from widening her eyes as they discovered the frost color flower standing out amongst others. It was a winter rose, the one she had learned about in the stories. The one that wouldn’t bloom anymore._

_She could see the smug expression on Sansa’s face even before peering up at her._

_“How?”_

_Sansa’s lips curled into her cautious charming smile, the one Margaery had been so encaptured by ever since she’d met her, roughly a couple of months before._

_“I don’t know. It was said to be the rarest and most precious flower back in those days, but it became extinct. Well, until I found one when I first moved here last year.”_

_She touched the petals with the delicacy that, by now, Margaery knew Sansa only ever had with plants. And with her._

_“It does not photosynthesize or manufacture its own food. It needs a specific fungus in contact with its root to provide nutrients. It’s extremely hard to take care of and practically impossible to grow.”_

_“It’s worth it, though,” Margaery affirmed._

_“Of course it is,” Sansa shifted her gaze back to her. “They are always worth it. People, however, hardly are.”_

_Margaery blinked at the almost brusque change of subject. “All people?”_

_Sansa nodded quietly. “All of them.”_

_Distancing herself, she paced in small circles._

_“Or at very least, none of them have been worth any effort. The ones I have come across.”_

_She looked at Margaery as if she was sending a message. Or perhaps asking a question._

_Asking if Margaery would be worth it._

_Margaery marched forward, her very best smile in the proper place. She held Sansa’s face between her hands. They both moved easily towards one another, and Margaery loved how Sansa's warm lips brushed over hers; how her hand stroked her back while the other tugged in her hair._

_“I’ve always heard the winter rose was the most beautiful rose ever to grow,” Margaery declared once they separated. “I agree. They remind me of your eyes.”_

-

Margaery was breathing the way she was supposed to after running all her way down from the main room in the Nightfort to the yard. She knew her legs would give in if she mentioned to slow down, which was why she only accelerated as she frantically chased after the _thing_. The thing that was stealing her little niece.

The thing was a woman. A woman Margaery had never imagined she would see, her skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars. _T_ _he corpse queen_. The words had popped into her mind in that first moment of insanity, when Margaery had first laid her eyes on her, minutes before.

The thing, the woman, the corpse, the queen, was taking her niece away from her. Her little niece, the one she had promised her brother to take care of while spending three months in the Nightfort.

The Nightfort. The abandoned castle of the Night’s Watch, the haunted broken castle. Where the Night’s King had ruled, back in the Age of Heroes. Where he had brought his white-skinned wife with him, the one he had given his seed and his soul to.

 _Those are just stories_ , _they are not supposed to be real_ , she screamed in her mind as she ran. She had been screaming that ever since the moment the corpse queen broke into the castle and took Margaery’s little girl in her arms.

“Margaery!”

She overheard Sansa’s yelling from far away, at the same moment she understood where the woman was going. Where she was going into.

Margaery’s niece’s little arms were shaking as the woman entered the almost frozen lake. “Aunt Margie!”

Her little desperate voice was enough to keep Margaery going. The thing was considerably slower as she went inside the water, even though Margaery highly doubted she felt any cold. Margaery barely felt it herself as her feet got in touch with the water.

She didn’t know what to do. The thing was too strong, she knew it. She had felt it by the way it had clutched Margaery’s throat and dragged her upstairs before stealing her niece from her. She had no idea what to do. There was nothing she could do to save her.

Until she stared deeply into her niece’s big despairing brown eyes, so similar to hers, and she vocalized the first words that came into her mind. She didn’t know where they had come from. They just had.

“It’s you. It’s me. It’s us.”

The woman aimed her abnormal face to Margaery, a battle between blue and brown. And all of a sudden Margaery was not herself anymore; she couldn’t see, she couldn’t hear, she couldn’t breathe. She was so positive she was dead until she opened her eyes again.

She felt the sodden weight in her arms before she saw it. Her niece was with her now, her small face buried into her neck, tiny trembling hands locked around her shoulders, ceaseless cries leaving her lips.

Margaery was still trying to conjecture what had happened when she caught Sansa’s voice and felt a splash behind her.

“Margaery, what happened? What was that?”

Sansa’s appearance was as shocked as Margaery knew her was. The redhead’s hands held her face and stroked the little girl’s hair before helping them out of the water. Margaery only realized how much the girl was freezing when Sansa pulled both of them into her arms. She was still so disoriented she didn't even notice how much she _wasn't_ freezing.

Margaery cautiously lifted her niece’s face, examining her. She was marked with tears and terror, but nothing else.

Margaery exhaled in relief. _She’s fine. We are both fine_.

“Aunt Margie?”, the girl’s frightened and anxious voice came to her ears. “Why are your eyes blue?”

-

Sansa’s lips caressed the nape of her neck as Margaery stared at the mirror. Not even the soft hands kneading her shoulders were enough to make her avert her eyes from where she had been unable to look away from for the last three days.

Her skin was paler, yes, but that could be easily dismissed, perhaps even go unnoticed. Perhaps even justified.

But not her eyes. Those she couldn’t hide.

At least not at first, and all of her coworkers that had been staying with her at the Nightfort - that had miraculously not woken up to what had happened that night - had questioned what that was. She couldn’t recall what story Sansa had invented. Nor could she remember what it was that she’d told them that had convinced them to leave the Nightfort in the morning to go stay in Whitetree, the lovely and nearby town where Sansa lived.

The thing was, Margaery hadn’t traveled to the Nightfort for fun. She was an architect. Not any architect - she had won multiple awards for her work and more than once she’d had projects listed as one of the best architectures of the year in Westeros.

But that was off the point. Well, Margaery, her team, and a group of the country’s most competent engineers had begun a project to reform and rebuild the old castles of the Night’s Watch. Which was why they were going to stay there for a few months.

Safe to say their plans had been terribly shortened.

When she’d told her older brother about the time she would spend at the Wall, her little niece had begged to come with her, since the first three months would match her school break. Neither Margaery nor her brother had been able to deny her that - no one was able to deny those huge brown eyes anything.

Safe to say they should have had.

“Garlan called when they got to Mole’s Town. They are probably on the bus to the Last Hearth right now, to take their flight back to Highgarden,” Sansa whispered against her skin. Garlan had taken the first flight North after knowing what had happened. His daughter and he were on their way home only a few hours after he had met with them.

“That’s good.” Margaery’s voice was as weak as it could get.

Sansa turned her in her arms. “Please, talk to me.”

Margaery’s first tears of the day started falling. “I feel her all the time, Sansa.”

 _Her_.

“I feel her all the time, wanting to come out. It’s almost like it’s waiting for it. What will be of my life now?”

“Your life will remain as it is.” Sansa pressed her forehead against Margaery’s. “You’re still the same person, Marge.”

“How can I be the same when I have a-”

She lowered her voice; her hotel room’s walls were too thin.

“When I have _her_ inside of me?”

Sansa tried to debate, but Margaery stepped away from her.

“I can’t come back. To my family, or my job. At some point, _she_ is going to take me.” She sat on the bed, clasping her almost bleached hands over her lap.

“I have been thinking,” she went on. “I will get the money I need and I will be traveling,” _I will be running_ , “For now on. While I-”, she took a deep breath.

“Wait. While I wait,” she concluded. _For her_ _to take control._

She was still gazing at her own hands when she felt Sansa sitting next to her on the bed, one long arm suddenly around her shoulders.

They looked into each other's eyes, a battle of blue and even bluer until Sansa spoke.

“Do you want company?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is story is almost done, so I will be posting the following chapters throughout the week!


	2. one day at a time

_Do you want company?_

Margaery did. And it turned out Sansa was a pretty great company.

Actually, Margaery had been unsure at first. Sansa certainly had her own job and her own life and couldn’t simply throw it all away to travel around the world - or how far they could ever get - with Margaery. With some woman she had met two months prior.

But she did. She told her she had left Winterfell because she’d wanted to experience something different - why had she chosen a small town Beyond the Wall for it, Margaery wouldn’t understand - so that wasn’t an opportunity she would pass.

A part of Margaery thought perhaps Sansa was running too.

They traveled in Sansa’s car; it was the longest road trip Margaery never thought she would enjoy.

They shared their beds every night in roadside hotels. In Sansa’s arms, Margaery felt safe. She seriously wondered if Sansa felt the same.

One night, they were naked inside their blankets, and she was feeling Sansa’s warm breath on her neck when she wondered out loud, “Don’t I disgust you?”

_What I have inside of me. Doesn’t it disgust you?_

When Sansa attached her lips to her skin and slipped her hand between Margaery’s legs, she had her answer.

-

“Stop!”, Sansa quiet-shouted when Margaery bit the side of her neck, elbowing the brunette back to her side of the restaurant bench. “We are in public, for the Gods’ sake.”

Margaery laughed. “This place is empty and we are in the back. Relax, honey,” she stroked the inner side of Sansa’s thigh.

Sansa tapped the hand that progressed towards the middle of her legs. “Would you pay attention here, please?”

She brought her Northern map to Margaery’s eyes. “I think we can get to Moat Cailin in three days. It’s such a historic place, it’s worth spending at least a week there. And then we could keep driving south, to Greywater Watch, or we could go northeast, to White Harbor.”

Margaery nodded. “We decide once we get there.”

“Yes. And also-”, Sansa paused.

Margaery looked up at her. “What?”

Sansa let out a giggly breath. “I know it might sound a bit impractical but… I was wondering if you’d like to book a flight… so we could spend Christmas in Winterfell.”

At Margaery’s silence, Sansa resumed, “It could be just a few days. And I’ll talk my family into not asking many questions if that worries you. They can be a bit of a pain but they’ll respect me if I ask them to.”

“It’s not that.”

Margaery sighed, taking Sansa’s hand into hers. “Christmas is still far away, honey. I don’t think we should be planning that.”

Weeks before, Margaery would’ve loved to plan. Plan Christmas, plan years in the future, plan anything she could. She _used_ to have so many plans, and dreams, and goals. But all of them had vanished that night.

“Stop.” Sansa gave a small, soft smile as she brought Margaery’s knuckles to her lips. “Stop acting like you’ll be dropping dead by tomorrow morning. Christmas is not that far away, and even if it were… can’t we just make the best use of the time we have?”

“We have to be realistic.”

“We are,” Sansa insisted. “One day at a time, okay? Is there anything more realistic than that?”

Margaery shook her head, her thumb brushing over Sansa’s jaw, not quite knowing what she had done to deserve that woman. Not knowing what she could possibly give her in return.

“One day at a time,” Sansa repeated. “And today, I want to plan Christmas with my girlfriend. Will you allow me to?”

And then Margaery was warm from head to toe.

-

Sansa had been right. Christmas hadn’t been too far away. Neither had New Year’s. Neither had the months following it.

And before Margaery knew it, more than a year had gone by.

At first, they had planned to stay two or three weeks in Gulltown, the most important city in the Vale. Maybe even longer, if they managed to get a ship to visit Braavos or King’s Landing for a few days.

They ended up staying much longer.

Margaery had imagined it could come to a moment where one would want to settle down, after wandering for so long. She had imagined a moment like that would come; she only hadn’t guessed it could happen to them. She hadn’t thought they would have time to get to that moment.

They opened a flower shop, The Golden Rose, on Lysene street, right outside the old Motherhouse of Maris, one of the city’s tourist spots. For Margaery, there was something poetic about spending her last months (or years? By then she wasn’t sure) working with what had surrounded her ever since she was a child.

She missed her old job, so incredibly much, but the shop made her more content than she ever thought she could be in a situation like the one she was in. And seeing the glow on Sansa’s face every day when she woke up to work with what she loved made it worth it a thousand times more.

“I have a problem.” Sansa entered the shop, a jar of gorgeous sunflowers in her hands.

Margaery only glanced at her before focusing back on the daisy bouquet she was arranging behind the counter. “What is it?”

Sansa placed the jar in front of Margaery, handing her one of the flowers.

She accepted it with a grin as Sansa spoke, “I love you.”

Margaery’s jaw fell just a bit as she continued, “I love you… and I think it might be a problem. Because you’re not the most optimistic person about the future and I, well, I think about having a future with you the whole time.”

“I love you and I think it’s a problem because I’ve never wanted that. Better yet, I hadn’t wanted that for so long. Back in Winterfell, I came to think that love was beyond me. I moved to the middle of nowhere because I thought so. And then you came and you changed absolutely everything and-”

Margaery’s lips were on hers. Her hands on each one of Sansa’s cheeks, she whispered against her, “It’s not a problem.”

It was probably a problem. Because she had a humanoid demon made of ice inside of her, and there were high chances she wouldn’t be able to give Sansa nearly as much as what she presumably wanted to have in the future. Nearly as much as what Margaery truly wanted to give her.

But they were taking it one day at a time - and that day, Sansa loved her. And she...

“I love you, too.”

-

One year later, they moved to a small apartment on the Warrior’s Son street. Margaery chose the job to build their bed; a task she had very much underestimated.

“There was literally only one thing you had to do while I took care of the shop; you couldn’t even do that?”, Sansa shouted once she arrived home and came across a mattress still supported against the wall and sprung slats spread around the bedroom floor.

“I’m sorry, honey. But I have to say, it’s a little bit your fault.”

Sansa’s shoulders fell as her eyes narrowed, and Margaery surpassed the giggle that wanted to come out. “Babe, you forgot the manual in the store, you said so yourself!”

“Yes,” Sansa’s voice was still enraged, “And even _so,_ you said you could take care of it!”

“It is so much harder than I had anticipated!”

“Aren’t you an architect?” Sansa clasped both hands over her own head, and Margaery laughed hard.

“You know that doesn’t have anything to do with it. Can’t we just call someone to set this up by tomorrow?”

“What about tonight, Margaery?”, Sansa crossed her arms over her stomach. “Where are we supposed to sleep tonight?”

Margaery shot her a cocky smile, holding Sansa’s arms and pushing her against the mattress. “I’m sure we can find a way.”

Sansa shook her head. “No. You will not take my mind away from this the way you always do, this is serious, Marge, it was the only thing we neede-”

Her words turned into a quiet sigh once Margaery sucked at the exact spot she liked it the most, right below her ear, while capable hands slid under her shirt and lightly scratched her back.

Sansa’s nails dug into Margaery's waist while her other hand tangled in brown hair. “This is not over.”

But when Margaery slipped her hand between her legs, she had already stopped talking.

-

One year later, a cold sensation began to spread itself inside of Margaery. 

It was an odd feeling. She hadn’t felt any cold in three years and a half, and all of the sudden it was like she was freezing from the inside out - but in an unexpected somewhat comfortable way. 

That was the worst. Not the fact that she felt a biting cold running from her veins to her skin, no. It was the fact that it didn’t bother her _at all._ The fact that, somehow, she almost enjoyed it. She felt like it was something unusually natural, nearly intrinsic. That’s what frightened her the most.

However, she wouldn’t let it scare her away, and she wouldn’t express it to Sansa. She owed her that much; not to taint their final months, or years, with fear, at least not when she still felt very much like herself when it came to her mind.

So the increasing cold didn’t stop her from doing what she was intending to do. Quite the opposite; it spurred her to do it while they still had time.

“Is this the arrangement you wanted me to finish, Marge?”

Margaery’s heart skipped a beat at the words that came from behind her, as she crouched to water some seedlings.

She threw a quick glance at her before turning back to what she was doing. Sansa was holding the tulip bouquet Margaery had left on the counter.

“Yes, exactly.”

“These are so pretty. What is it for?”

“A wedding,” Margaery replied casually.

Seconds went by before she heard it, “What is this-”

And then a moment of silence that had Margaery feeling her pulse in her ears.

“Margaery, what is this?”, the almost inaudible voice was much closer now.

Margaery came to a proper stand and swung around to face the redhead.

Whose gorgeous blue eyes were already filling with tears as she looked at her with so much longing - as she held the simple gold wedding ring between her fingers.

“You’ve said I'm not too optimistic about the future, and you are absolutely right. I’m not. But I want to spend the time I have with you in the very best way possible. I want to try and make you as happy and as loved and as fulfilled as you make me.”

She took a deep breath as she edged herself towards her, their eyes never leaving one another.

“And I know we can’t get married on paper, but I don’t care. I want you to call me your wife. To me, and to the people who know us. I want _us_ to decide what we are for each other.”

Sansa lips curved in a shaky smile as she seized Margaery’s hand.

Margaery tilted her head and shot her the most charming smile she had when she felt delicate fingers intertwining with hers.

“So, do you want to marry me, love?”

Sansa’s watery chuckle only lasted for a second before she pulled Margaery into her arms. Margaery placed her own arms around Sansa’s neck as a tongue outlined her lips, before meeting Margaery’s own.

“I want to marry you more than I want anything in the world.”

-

Married life was almost the same as their former one; only better. Even if their daily routine was basically the same, there was something really grand about calling Sansa _her wife._ About having strangers looking at her finger and automatically acknowledging she belonged to someone. About knowing that it was like that for Sansa as well.

Their honeymoon was expensive, short, and well spent in Lorath, one of the Nine Free Cities; it was the first time in Essos for the both of them, something they had been dreaming of in the past years.

So, their first six months married had been some of the best of Margaery’s life. Granted, the whole one year and two months of their marriage had been perfect - if it weren’t for the problems Margaery had begun to deal with somewhere along the way. The inevitable fated problems she had always seen coming; only perhaps she hadn’t been as prepared for as she had considered she would be once they came.

She had gotten used to the cold. The glacial, almost frigid feeling she had inside of her; she had gotten too used to it. It had become habitual and it didn’t bother her the least. Even when she asked Sansa if her skin was too cold, and Sansa would lie and tell her it didn’t, even then it wouldn’t really trouble her. It was her _mind_ that anguished her.

Because at some point, she started to _see_ her. The woman. The corpse queen. The creature. Every once in a while, Margaery would see _her_ in the mirror, instead of her own face. And then in the water she would prepare for her bath. And reflected on her coffee cup.

It had terrified the shit out of her at first, but then it had become so recurrent it wouldn’t particularly startle her anymore; only… captivate her, somehow. She would spend minutes staring at her reflection, or better yet, at the woman’s reflection, too enthralled in horror and fear to move.

As it became more frequent, she felt obligated to tell Sansa.

Her wife was reading on the couch when Margaery sat next to her and announced, “It’s happening.”

Sansa’s eyes snapped at her. “What is?”

Margaery closed her eyes. “You know what is.”

Sansa moved swiftly, and in less than one second she had her hands on each side of Margaery. “Tell me.”

“I have been feeling her more intensively for a long while now. But in these last couple of months, I have been seeing her. Literally. In the mirrors. In the water. Everywhere.” Margaery tried to swallow the tears that already threatened to fall.

Sansa’s thumbs stroked both of Margaery’s arms, a silent request to keep her going.

“I’m fearful of the moment I will lose my mind to her, and not be myself anymore. I feel it coming. Soon. And I’m fearful of what I’ll become then, and what I might do to you.”

Sansa’s hands moved to brown hair, stroking it. “You’re still very much yourself,” her voice tiny and a bit pleading, “You won’t do anything to me, or anyone for that matter.”

“You didn’t see what she did to me,” Margaery returned, the feeling of the woman’s ice stone fingers ghosting around her throat. “But you did see what she tried to do to my niece. You are from the North, Sansa. Is it possible that you’ve never heard the tales? The tales about creatures like her, and what they did?”

_“The Others hate every creature with hot blood in its veins.”_

Margaery had done so much research on them in the past years, specifically in the past months. She had read everything, from the children's stories to the horror novels, everything on who they were, how they looked - _inhumane, beautiful, dangerous -_ , what they did _\- necromancy, children sacrifice -_ , what they rode - _dead horses, dead direwolves, dead giant spiders._

And what could kill them. She had looked that up too.

And even if the vast majority of what she’d studied had been fiction - with the exception of some stories in a few articles on supposedly real supernatural reports - what she had seen that night years before fit so well, she hadn’t hesitated to trust most of what she’d assimilated.

“Sansa, it’s only a matter of time now. I need to accept it and see what I must do-”

“You mustn’t do anything!”, Sansa did not try to hide the agony in her voice. “You are still here,” she locked her hands around Margaery’s face. “And while you’re still looking at me the way you always do, while you’re still smiling the way you always do,” she breathed, her fingers caressing Margaery’s cheeks as if they were the most precious things in the world. “While you’re still breathing… we will not be doing anything other than taking it one day at a time, as we vowed to. Do you understand me?”

It wasn’t right, or ideal. It was risky and dangerous, and illusory. But at the same time -

At the same time, it was tiring to keep living the way she was. But it was terrifying to face what she would have to do in order to fix _\- finish -_ it.

So it was just easier to nod and loosen herself in the feeling of Sansa’s arms closing around her.

-

Their... avoidance towards the _issue_ lasted for a while. It was over later than what Margaery would’ve expected and sooner than what she would’ve wanted.

There was a snowstorm in her dream; cutting and blinding, but it felt like she belonged there.

She didn’t, though. At all. She belonged in Highgarden, in the longest summers and the sunlit gardens, in the warm waters and the hot grass.

_Used to belong there._

Now she belonged where she was; in the white blizzard, high in a shadowed horse, a crystal sword in her hand.

The grey giant direwolf ahead of her did not seem to agree, groaning at her horse and displaying its sharp teeth. Margaery didn’t have to think twice before clutching at her sword and trotting towards the animal.

As it raised its gaze to her, the wolf’s yellow eyes lost all ferociousness, an almost sorrowful gleam taking place as Margaery’s blade hit its neck.

And that was the exact moment Margaery woke up, panting and sweating. She was already sitting on the bed, where she had fallen asleep hours before, in Sansa’s arms.

She had to blink her eyes a few times to recognize the soft surface under her grasp; and widen them as she saw Sansa's perfectly asleep face - unaware of Margaery’s hands around her throat. Her hold not too strong to wake her up, but precise enough to have her understand what would have happened if she hadn’t woken up the moment she did. What she would have done. 

She.

That was it.

It had come.

By dawn, Margaery had already shut their apartment door behind her.

-

Sansa woke up a little earlier without the familiar weight on her shoulder. She stretched lazily, missing the feeling of Margaery’s body next to hers. She’d probably gotten up to use the bathroom.

Minutes passed and she hadn’t come back, and Sansa just figured she was having breakfast already. She was only getting dressed when she noticed the folded yellow piece of paper on her nightstand and her blood froze.

She closed her eyes for a moment. It could be nothing. It could be a note saying Margaery had to go to the bakery. Or had an emergency in the shop. It could be nothing.

She recalled Margaery’s behavior in the past weeks. In the past months, really. Before Margaery’s revelation, and after, when she’d hopelessly and desperately made Margaery promise not to speak on that subject again. Perhaps her wife had presumed she hadn’t noticed it, but she very much had. The look on her face whenever she believed Sansa wasn’t observing her. The way she would stare at herself in the mirror. The one or two times she had aimlessly asked Sansa if she thought her skin felt cold, and Sansa had lied on the spot.

Sansa shook her head at herself. Margaery had gone to the bakery.

But her fingers were trembling as she opened the note. As was her whole body once she had finished reading it.

_“My time has come. As we both knew it would._

_I couldn’t risk putting in you in any kind of danger. But believe me, leaving you behind is the worst pain I’ve ever felt._

_You are the best thing that has ever happened to me, and even if our story is coming to a much earlier end than it should, it was still worth it, honey. I loved you completely and you loved me the same. That’s all._

_Don’t come after me.”_


	3. love you completely (you love me the same)

_Don’t come after me._

Sansa did. She knew exactly where Margaery had gone to.

Because even if she had tried to avoid it, tried not to think about it, tried to live _o_ _ne day at a time_ and not worry… she knew the moment would come. The moment where Margaery would give up, would feel too possessed and dominated by the thing that lived inside of her, would feel too scared to be around Sansa or anyone else. And would try to fix it. Or get rid of it.

Sansa had done research of her own. She just had to get to Margaery before she did whatever she _planned_ on doing to get rid of it.

Booking a flight to Dragonstone on the very same day Margaery left must have cost her much more than she would have been usually willing to spend; but when she booked it she didn’t even bother to look at the price.

Nor the price of the tour bus she bought a ticket to when she was still at the airport. Nor the price of the excursion to the Dragonglass Cave.

The cave was enormous and the number of visitors was small. As she distanced herself from the other tourists, instinct told her where to go. She surely knew nothing about the place, and the darkness made it tricky for her to take even the tiniest steps.

Even so, a gut feeling guided her through the stony paths. From one damp corridor to the other, she wondered if that was the same voice of intuition that had led Margaery to say those words almost five years before; the words that had saved her little niece and that had dragged the Other woman to possess her body.

It still took her a little while to find it, though. Behind a pile of boulders, her vision managed to differentiate a pale hand. How many times had she held that hand? How many times had that hand run up and down every inch of her body?

She took the deepest breath of her life as she took the final steps and Margaery’s whole body came into her vision. It was hard to see with the darkness and the tears in her eyes, but it was enough.

She remained so pretty. Even though her skin was as pale as it should be, it was still less whitened than it was before. She was wearing her blue jeans and the pair of black boots she loved so much. The necklace her grandmother had given her and the bracelet her niece had sent her the year before. She had been so emotional about the little girl remembering her even after so long.

And the ring. Of course, she was wearing their ring.

The shirt she was wearing was plain. The obsidian shard right in the middle of her midriff.

_The stories say only dragonglass could kill them._

Sansa was on her knees. She couldn’t remember falling down.

She sat on the dirty floor and the sobs left her chest ceaselessly as she laid Margaery on her lap, touched her face, her lips, her eyelids. Her skin was cold, but not as cold as it had been in her last months. Her eyes were the color they once used to be, years before. She buried her face into her neck, ignoring the smell, muffling her voice.

“You promised me you would be worth it,” she wept. “You didn’t promise me with your words, but you promised me with your actions. With the way you looked at me. Marge-”

_The time we have._

How many times had both of them used that phrase? A future wasn’t on the table. Margaery had never promised her that. Only that they would use their days, their weeks and months and years in the best way possible - and they had.

Margaery had silently promised her she would be worth it; and she had kept it until the very end.

But still. Sansa wanted more. She wanted so much more she couldn’t possibly put into words.

She didn’t know how many hours she spent in that very spot. All she knew was that she would never understand how her legs didn’t give in when she stood up with Margaery in her arms; she had held her like that before so many times. She remembered vividly that one night, after their _wedding_ dinner with some friends, where she had carried her into their home, the way a married couple should do.

She took slow, exhausted, lifeless steps towards Gods-knew-where when she felt something, _someone,_ behind her in the darkness. And even if she felt like there was nothing to live for anymore, she was frightened to the bone as she whirled around.

It was a woman. A rather beautiful one. Taller than Sansa, which was something, and she had red hair too. Her eyes were red too, which was unsettling, as were her clothes. Her skin was unblemished, as pale as Margaery's had been in the past years, as _that_ woman had been; only the one right in front of Sansa was not cold _at all._ Sansa could feel the heat she emitted even from the distance where she stood.

She wore one big ruby inside a red gold choker that caught Sansa’s eyesight.

Sansa didn’t even notice how closer the woman was to them now; and when she opened her mouth, the deepest voice Sansa had ever heard came out.

“He told me she would be here.”

-

Margaery thought the physical pain of putting a piece of sharp glass through her own stomach was unmatched. She was wrong.

The first breath she took when she _woke up_ had her realizing that.

It was a mix of things, honestly. The physical ache was unmistakable; like flames ripping out her lungs as her eyes opened and fell closed again at the dim light. But the darkness she was in, not literal but quite figurative darkness, had something to do with it as well.

The first thought she had was that it hadn’t worked. She had used the obsidian on her own body, to kill herself and consequently what was inside of her, but it hadn’t worked. She had hit the wrong spot and had managed to stay alive.

Until she realized…

Well, it took her a while to realize, really. A long while, even if she had grown so accustomed to the feeling after so long, especially in the last months.

It took her long minutes to realize the fact that she wasn’t cold anymore. At all. Not even a little. Quite the opposite, actually. She felt ardent.

And then she began to wonder if it hadn’t all been a dream. Ever since the beginning. If that night, that woman, her niece, Sansa, if it hadn’t all been the longest dream a human being had ever endured.

Well, that assumption faded fairly quickly once she looked down at her _naked_ body and saw the still very ugly scar on her abdomen.

The little wheels in her brain were still trying to gather what was happening when the door - she hadn’t even reckoned the room or whatever place she was in had a door. She hadn’t even discerned she was lying on a bed - opened and her _wife_ came in.

“Marg-”, Sansa’s voice broke before she could complete it, her face crumbling. She ran to the bed, holding Margaery’s head in her hands, pressing their foreheads together.

“Honey”, Margaery mentioned to speak as well, but she most definitely couldn’t. For more reasons than she could count.

Sansa wasn’t having the easiest time either, whispering, “I can’t-, you almost, I almost-,” as she sobbed quietly.

She held Margaery’s face for dear life as they clasped their damp cheeks together.

She wasn’t sure how long they spent like that, Sansa’s faint whimpers in her ear as she cried, Margaery’s tears sliding silently down her face as she remained agape, not able to even collect all the thoughts and questions that ran through her mind.

Finally, she seized Sansa’s fists and withdrew to look her in the eye. “What happened? Where are we?”

Sansa sat on the bed, drawing in a deep quivery breath. “In a hotel room in Dragonstone. It was not simple to bring you here, you being... unconscious for the last two days.”

“Sansa…”, weak didn’t even begin to describe how her voice sounded.

“After you abandoned me,” Sansa’s tone was now sober, a sharp contrast to the redness of her face and the swelling of her eyes. “I came after you. It was easy to figure out where you were. What you were going to do. Obviously, you were gone when I found you.”

“Gone?”, the word left Margaery’s lips slowly. So she was gone. Had been.

“Yes.” Sansa’s face threatened to break again, but she kept it under control. “I was… taking you out of there when-”

“When what?”

It had to be part of her magic, Margaery would think afterwards. It had to be, as she entered the room in that exact moment.

The door opened once again to reveal the strangest but still gorgeous woman Margaery had ever seen, towering and elegant, red hair, red eyes, red outfit, red everything, really - except for her creamy, blanched skin.

Scarlet eyes took her in, and Margaery had the sense of mind to cover her bare chest, as the woman spoke, “It worked.”

She sounded astounded, and Margaery suspected that wasn’t quite her intention, as she cleared her throat lightly and a grave gleam took over her semblant.

“This is Melisandre. She is a red priestess, and the reason why you are here.” Sansa sounded deeply uncomfortable.

Margaery took the woman in. “Uh... R’hollor?” The followers of the Lord of Light, or something like that; it was a common religion in Essos, but not so much where she had come from, and she had never seen one of them in person. They were said to use magic, and fire, and things Margaery couldn’t quite recall.

 _Melisandre’s_ lips curled in the tiniest smile. “Exactly.”

She lifted her head, gazing at Margaery from above. “Five years, they have been trying to make me find you. The flames,” she added before Margaery asked. “I am not the most agile interpreter, but ultimately I understood. And then I came to you.”

Deep inside, Margaery tried to find her mistrust. That wasn’t possible. That was no such thing, those types of things did not exist; but those were words she had been telling herself over and over, for too long now. She had no energy or disposition left for skepticism or logic; so she merely took in the words that were thrown at her.

“The flames told me about your sacrifice. _He_ told me, through the flames. Those creatures, they are the cold children of the Great Other, the god that wages in eternal war against my Lord. And you sacrificed yourself to end one of them. You deserved your recompense.”

Margaery glanced at Sansa, whose eyes were focused at nowhere in specific. She looked inept; as if those words distressed her somehow.

 _It’s too strange,_ Margaery knew. It was all too strange, too hard to believe; things they had been raised not to believe, beliefs that were taken as a joke in so many places, practices that had always been nothing but myths to them. It was too strange.

But Melisandre either didn’t notice or decided to ignore their discomfort; perhaps she was too used to it. “I found you in your wife’s arms, and I convinced her to let me try. I gave you the last kiss.”

 _The kiss of life; the priest fills their mouth with fire and breathes into the deceased in order to revive them,_ came to Margaery in a flash. She had read about it somewhere, and her skin crawled.

“Honestly, I didn’t think it would work. It never had before.” She stared at her own colorless palms, a faint bit of astonishment in red eyes. “But it did.”

Margaery didn’t want to think the words. The words that would describe what had happened to her, what Melisandre had done to her, what had led her to be there at the moment, when she most definitely shouldn’t be there or anywhere else. She figured she would get sick if she even begin to think of it, so she simply opened her mouth to say the only thing she could think of, even if the words seemed, somehow, entirely inappropriate and unrequired.

“Thank you.”

The priestess arched her eyebrow slightly as her lips curved into a smirk.

“You deserved your recompense,” she repeated. “Make good use of it.”

And then she was out the door.

When Margaery averted her eyes, Sansa was watching her.

Margaery shivered at the intensity of her gaze; those large, crystal blue eyes that had been the last thing on Margaery’s brain before she was gone. All the way, from home to Dragonstone, she had thought of her.

How she would never ever see her again. Never feel the touch of her skin, and the taste of her lips. Her smell, and the warmth of her body against hers. Her tender promises when they would fall asleep, and her breathless words whispered in Margaery’s ear minutes before those.

All the way, from home to Dragonstone, she had lamented leaving Sansa behind. All the way, she had wished for Sansa to forgive her some day. She had implored for her to understand.

Margaery felt so heavy at that moment, and she knew she would break down once she stopped to think about the priestess; she would rather leave that to the afterwards. She focused on the breathtaking devastated woman in front of her instead.

With Melisandre, the mandatory words had come because Margaery had nothing else to say, hadn’t known what to say; and they had seemed hazy and vague. With Sansa, the mandatory words came because Margaery had never meant anything so badly.

“I’m so sorry, Sansa.”

She heard Sansa’s shuddering breath. She watched her face crestfallen. And most importantly, she felt Sansa’s torso against her as she threw herself on Margaery.

She buried her face in red hair, inhaling its scent, her fingers roaming up and down her back and her arms - feeling a bit of all she’d considered to have forgone forever.

“I’m sorry,” she insisted, and Sansa moved back to face her. “How is it going to be now?”

The grip Sansa had on her face was loving and firm. “It’s going to be okay.”

And the kiss she pressed on her lips felt like salvation and held a sense of promise.

-

“You lied,” Sansa spoke into the quietness.

Margaery stretched in the grass, her eyes shut at the feeling of Sansa’s fingers in her scalp. “When did I lie?”

“When you said they were giant lily pads. Those are regular lily pads, Marge.”

Margaery laughed as she sat up, watching the sunlight reflected in the lake waters in front of them. The shadow of the willow above them protected them from said sun.

“I wanted to impress you.”

Then Sansa was sitting too, hooping her arm around Margaery’s waist and resting her head on her shoulder. “And you supposed the briar labyrinth and the ornamental lake had no such effect on their own?”

Margaery pressed a lingering kiss on Sansa’s head, the soft coconut scent of her shampoo penetrating her nostrils as she breathed in.

“You are tough to impact, honey. It was the first thing I noticed about you.”

And then she closed her eyelids once again, leaning her head on top of Sansa’s as she heard a bird whistling somewhere.

Following Dragonstone, Margaery had stayed home for a month; those had been dark, loaded days, days she had spent trying to understand, trying to rediscover her peace of mind, trying to come to terms with what had happened and accept - more than anything, accept.

And she did, eventually. Eventually, with Sansa’s constant words and support, she had allowed herself to feel alive. She _was_ alive after all. Even when she was not supposed to.

And once she did consent herself that, the relief, and the miracle, she felt more alive than she had felt in years. Almost five years, to be more exact.

And then she didn’t have any doubts on where to go; it hadn’t taken _any_ effort to convince Sansa to travel south with her.

Being back to Highgarden, after so long, was everything.

Being back to her family was the best gift she could ever ask for.

Being back to Loras, the brother she had always been so, so close to, was incredible, and inconceivable.

Being back to Garlan, who had seen her at ler lowest, was emotional. And being back to her niece was… undescredible.

Her niece, who was a few meters ahead of them, a flower crown around her head as she played on the grass.

“She looks even more like you now, it’s insane,” Sansa murmured.

“Yes.” And then she ducked down, holding Sansa’s face gently, scanning her blue eyes. “I hope ours look like you.”

And then the smile Sansa shot her was just better than words could say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's done now! Thanks for reading :)


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